Mount Baker Housing Association (MBHA) plans to clean up and redevelop five properties in southeast Seattle for affordable housing. Two of the properties are sources of solvent and petroleum contamination – Mt. Baker Cleaners and a former Phillips 66 gasoline/auto service station. MBHA acquired the properties in December 2016, and plans to begin cleanup work in 2019.

MBHA will build two affordable housing apartment buildings at the intersection of South McClellan Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way South - Maddux North, on the northeast corner, and Maddux South on the southeast corner.

Ecology and MBHA have negotiated an agreement called a Prospective Purchaser Consent Decree (PPCD). It outlines the process required for studying the contamination on the site, evaluating cleanup alternatives and developing a cleanup plan.

2017 – 2019 Work Schedule

Investigate. Complete soil, groundwater and soil gas sampling and testing at the site.

Ready for Action. Estimated cleanup and start of redevelopment in 2019.

Mt. Baker McClellan Street Redevelopment Opportunity Zone

WHY DOES THIS CLEANUP AND REDEVELOPMENT MATTER?

The Mt. Baker Gateway project will lead to the cleanup of a contaminated site that has not been addressed for years. It will also redevelop multiple vacant or underused properties, create new, affordable housing in one of Seattle’s most diverse and economically-challenged neighborhoods, and promote affordable, sustainable, transit-oriented development.

In February 2017, the City of Seattle signed a resolution to create its first Redevelopment Opportunity Zone (ROZ). The resolution opens the door for a new partnership between Ecology, Seattle, and the non-profit MBHA.

MBHA will be the first non-governmental organization to receive funds under the state’s Brownfield Redevelopment Trust Fund created in 2013. With the consent decree and ROZ in place, Ecology will provide $400,000 for environmental work on the site. The affordable housing project will eventually be financed with Low Income Housing Tax Credits, City of Seattle Housing Levy funds, and other sources.

In 2013, amendments to MTCA established three tools intended to help local governments clean up brownfield sites:

Redevelopment Opportunity Zones (ROZs)

Brownfield Renewal Authorities

Brownfield Redevelopment Trust Fund Account

A brownfield site is an abandoned or underused property where reuse or redevelopment is hindered by the release (or threatened release) of hazardous substances, such as might occur at a former dry cleaners or an abandoned gas station.

Since 2013, three local governments have created ROZs – Spokane, Bellingham, and Seattle.

Access a “brownfield redevelopment trust fund account,” created within the state’s budget, which can be used to secure long-term funding for cleanup (see RCW 70.105D.140).

Within these zones, Ecology is authorized to:

Enter into agreed orders with prospective purchasers to accelerate the study of sites with redevelopment potential.

Enter into mixed funding settlement agreements with prospective purchasers where public funding is commensurate with a public benefit other than cleanup.

Prioritize grants for integrated planning and area-wide groundwater remedial actions within these zones.

Properties purchased for Mt .Baker Gateway project

SITE HISTORY

Over the last several decades, businesses operating at the Site released hazardous substances at the Site. The Site includes all areas where contamination has come to be located from releases at Mount Baker Cleaners and a former retail gas station. Contamination from petroleum and solvents (volatile organic compounds or VOCs) is commingled at the Site.

Former Gas Service Station Parcel (south side of S McClellan Street):

A gasoline station operated at 2800 Martin Luther King Jr. Way S from the mid-1950s to mid-2000s (most recently Phillips 66 #070644). From the 1990s until 2004, the property was used as an auto repair business. Environmental sampling also found solvent contamination on the property.

Three underground storage tanks were removed in 1989. In 2005 other gas/service station equipment was removed and a petroleum-related release was reported to Ecology in August 2005. In 2005–06, several soil and groundwater borings were advanced. In 2005, five ozone injection points were installed, ozone was applied. This system operated until 2007, when additional treatment was conducted through in-situ chemical oxidation. Since 2010, Phillips 66 has conducted additional sampling at the property through Ecology’s Voluntary Cleanup Program (VCP), but no additional cleanup.

McClellan Parcels (north side of S McClellan Street):

The other four properties purchased by MBHA, including the Mt. Baker Cleaners property, are collectively referred to as the “McClellan Parcels”.

Mt. Baker Cleaners has been operating at 2864 S McClellan Street since the early 1950s. It is the source of dry cleaning related contamination beneath the McClellan Parcels and other surrounding properties and rights of way. Chlorinated and non-chlorinated VOCs have been detected on the property. There have been no remedial actions associated with this property.

CONTAMINANTS OF CONCERN

Solvents and petroleum hydrocarbons from the drycleaner and the former gas station/auto repair operations have contaminated soil and groundwater. The contaminants of concern are: